


The Door

by awesomefatkitty



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Child Loss, Coping, Depression, Fred Weasley's Funeral, Grief/Mourning, Harry Potter Epilogue Compliant, POV Arthur, Pre-Epilogue, The Burrow (Harry Potter), not really coping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 03:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30015747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awesomefatkitty/pseuds/awesomefatkitty
Summary: They wouldn’t understand; not really. He hoped they never did.
Relationships: Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley





	The Door

The normally lively house sat quiet and still in the early morning light. Dishes from the night before sat piled in the sink, waiting for someone to find the energy to wash them. Even the field around the house, normally occupied by waking birds and chattering gnomes, hung silent in the gray dewy morn. Usually the house would have begun to stir with its occupants, creaking and cracking as feet pounded down the stairs amongst shouts to get out of the bathroom and faded laughter. Only the occasional muffled step disturbed the abandoned feeling that had fallen over the Burrow, the once lively creak of the stairs only whispering as his family descended them one by one.

He had been the first one downstairs that day. Perhaps first was not the correct sentiment; after all, he hadn’t moved from the ratty old chair beside the long dead fire all night, his mind far away as he absently picked at pilled material and loose strings.

Slowly but surely, his children began to fill the seats around him. Occasionally they would whisper soothing assurances to each other, but no one dared speak to him. They cast concerned, sympathetic expressions his way, but they were young and childless. Their pain, just as real as his, was different. They wouldn’t understand; not really. He hoped they never did.

Eventually, what felt like hours later, they were all assembled but for three. He tried very hard not to think of the third that would never join them again. But just like every other time he tried to turn his thoughts to something else, he failed. He always failed.

The murmurs around him began to grow in frequency and urgency. He knew they were debating amongst themselves which of them would break the wall that had grown around and separated him weeks ago first. He simply waited, still pulling at a loose string.

Finally, his eldest loudly cleared his throat and he turned his head to meet his son’s gaze. The expression he received in return appeared shocked and then softened. He said not a word; still, he waited.

“It’s time to go,” Bill said. Arthur nodded slowly. Bill looked down at the rumpled clothing Arthur had worn the day before and the day before that, but he said nothing. “We don’t know where George is. He’s not in his room.”

“He already left,” Arthur said, as if that was enough of an answer. He looked back down at the rug in front of him, the sea of black around him suddenly too much to bare.

“When?” This time it was Ginny who spoke, her voice as haggard as his appearance.

“Last night.”

Arthur didn’t know where his son had gone, if he would be there today, if he would ever come back. They had locked eyes briefly as George passed him on the way out, his son’s brown eyes just as dark and empty as his blue. Not a word had been spoken, not even a nod of acknowledgment exchanged. George had just left and Arthur hadn’t had the energy to find out where to or if he was safe. Seeing George, talking to him, was so much harder than with everyone else. George reminded him of the third, of his failures, of the shattered remains of his heart. Arthur couldn’t bare to face all that; not yet. He knew his fatherly title should be stripped from him for feeling this way, but he just sat in his chair instead and picked and picked and picked.

Silence greeted his answer. It seemed no one was going to continue the discussion. The clock ticking was all that broke the quiet, beginning to make his children and their partners and their friends squirm in discomfort.

“Someone should get mom,” Charlie finally broke the tense atmosphere again. Everyone mumbled their agreement, but nobody moved.

“I’ll go,” Hermione said, her tone conveying annoyance at everyone’s lack of movement. At least, that’s what it sounded like to Arthur. He didn’t know her that well, not really. He looked up then.

“No, I’ll do it,” he said. Hermione looked shocked like Bill had, her expression softening after in the same manner. What did they keep seeing on his face? Was his grief really that palpable? Before he could ask, before he could see anymore of their attempts to empathize as they had first tried when they all got home, Arthur stood and made his way to the stairs.

The house seemed to creak a little louder for him, matching the hard thrum of his heart as though attempting to remind him it had lost a child too. Or perhaps to drown out the downward spiral he would inevitably find himself in as he passed by _that_ door. The door that had kept him from sleeping in his own bed more than twice since he had arrived back at the Burrow; the same door that kept his wife curled up in their bed more often than not.

His bedroom door was closed. There were no telltale signs of movement, not like there used to be when Molly would bustle around getting ready for an event, even one like this. The creak of the house quieted with his steps and he paused with his hand raised, fruitlessly hoping that Molly would pull the door open any moment and flash him that tired smile she reserved for him when their hearts were heavy and they were alone. Because once upon a time, he could always count on lovely, beautiful, wonderful Molly to pull him from the depths of his despair. But then, once upon a time she could rely on him too. So he waited and he waited, but still only silence remained. So finally, he knocked.

“Molly?” he called as the echo of banging against wood faded. There was no reply. He never really expected there to be. He swallowed the lump in his throat and steeled himself. “Love, it’s time to go. We have to…we have to…” He couldn’t say it. He would never be able to say it.

Finally, there was a response. An answering, agonized sob. Arthur responded in kind.

There were four missing people that day.


End file.
